Steve McIntosh Report Blog

Swimming in Wichita

by Steve Mcintosh,posted Nov 1 2013 3:50AM

City officials are looking at an Aquatics Master Plan for Wichita. The city has eleven municipal swimming pools and could reduce that number to five or six in a nine-year plan that could cost 20 million dollars. Those eleven pools have an average age of 44 years. The average lifespan for any pool is 25 years.
Vice Mayor Pete Meitzner tells me he doubts the need for so many city pools. Every new housing development has its own neighborhood pool. And Meitzner says today’s kids just don’t go swimming as much as kids in the past.
Many of us spent hours at city pools in Wichita … on sunny summer afternoons that stretched into the evening. I remember pools closing at 9 p-m.
But today’s young people have so many other forms of entertainment; they apparently just don’t have time to go swimming. After all, there are video games to be played.
Looks like one more change to deal with.
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